Sunday, August 24, 2014

Magic

Monday:

This weekend we introduced the kids to the card game Magic: The Gathering. It's one of the many geeky things my husband introduced me to, along with Dungeons and Dragons and the computer game World of Warcraft. We used to play Magic a lot when we were first going out. Since we lived eight hours drive apart, we even played over the phone! You each have your own deck, so as long as you trust the other person to be honest about what cards they have, you can do that. It's a collectable card game and we have hundreds of cards, plenty for the kids to make their own decks.

It was a perfect demonstration of my children's personality types. Jasmine sat with me for an hour sorting cards and taking my advice to create a balanced deck. Aiden randomly grabbed whichever cards looked good. His needed a bit of tweaking to make it playable!

I did not stick to carb cycling or any other diet this week, or exercise much. I just ate. This morning I weighed in at 82.5 kg, up again. My main excuse is lack of sleep driving me to want fatty sugary food to keep me awake. Thor has suddenly started waking much earlier, presumably because it is getting light earlier but it's still a big jump. Tim and I take it in turns to get up to let him out and we both dread it. I'm already sleep deprived but even Tim is walking around with dark circles under his eyes. We're getting up nearly an hour and a half before we otherwise would (and on weekends don't get to sleep in). And of course the other person is woken by Thor's banging on his door (he sleeps in the bathroom) even if they don't have to get up. I know some people thrive on getting up at the crack of dawn, or hate it at first but get used to it. But I've tried it before and continue to hate it forever. And Tim is definitely a night owl, not a lark. Maybe we can pin a blanket over the venetian blinds to keep it dark longer in there so he sleeps? I've been doing a fair bit of napping in the afternoons, on the lounge with Thor draped over me. It keeps me going.

That is my excuse, but I know that I have to put on my big girl panties (as I've heard it expressed) and get on with my life regardless. I can be sleep deprived and fat, or sleep deprived and a healthy weight.

This week is going to be particularly challenging. Jasmine's big dance concert is on Saturday night and she has rehearsal every day after school, often until late. And Tim and the kids also have a karate grading assessment. And Jasmine also has two band performances (trumpet) and a dance performance at school that Tim & I will split between us. She's going to be exhausted! She's like me, too, a very poor sleeper. What all this means for my diet is that I'll be trying to juggle making healthy meals with driving back and forth and sitting around at the dance studio, and having dinner really early or late. I'll be making casseroles every night, I think! Then I can put it on at lunch time and have hot food ready even if I haven't been home to cook it. It's less tempting to get take away if you know food is already ready at home. I'll also be up at the school at lunchtime a couple of days.

It's only a week until spring and we've had a few lovely days already. Floriade must be soon, our annual flower festival. A whole big park by the lake is filled with tulips and hyacinths and other spring bulbs and flowers, it is quite a tourist attraction. I am so looking forward to that! I don't think dogs are allowed, which is a shame, but it's a lovely place to sit and read or walk around. -- I just looked it up and dogs are not allowed, except they are having one "Dogs Day Out" for RSPCA. I'm not sure how Thor would cope with a whole park full of dogs! He's a bit scared of them. I'll see how he's going at that point. It's around then that we start puppy preschool class with him, the current session was already full when I enquired so we had to wait. So he's not really socialised with other dogs yet. They are all so much bigger than him.

3 comments:

I love MTG! Friends of mine introduced it to me a couple of years ago. Between them they have a lot of cards/decks. I always get given a borrowed deck that is a white/green split. It's a primarily defensive deck. Some games it's good, others it's really frustrating, because I have nothing to play, just keep earning mana. What generation are your cards? Just asking, because my friends' cards are from when they were in high school (late 90s/early 00s) and they don't really like to play with their other friends who have the newer (2010+) cards. Apparently they're much more powerful and playing an older deck just can't keep up.

Sorry, geeked out a little there! :) As I said, I like MTG too :D

And Floriade! Love Floriade! Definitely something I miss being up here in QLD. Just not cold enough for the right lovely blooms.

Definitely think too, casseroles are the way to go. Then you (and Tim) can have left overs for lunch and you'll be able to set up with a fresh batch for the next night.

Many of our cards are from late 90s/early 00s - and those ones are good for the kids because they stuck to the basic original rules - but we have bought decks and extra cards every so often since then. Probably not in the past four or five years. We have a few "premade" decks that are more recent and powerful. My main deck is white/green, primarily made up of old cards, and it's good enough for playing at home (and crafted to stymie my husband's favourite white/blue flying deck). I don't think it would do very well in a competition! But then again, neither would I.